Author

Date of Award

6-2011

Degree Name

MS in Computer Science

Department

Computer Science

Advisor

Franz Kurfess

Abstract

A field guide is a tool to identify an object of natural history. Field guidescover a wide range of topics from plants to fungi, birds to mammals, and shells to minerals. Traditionally, field guides are books, usually small enough to be carried outdoors . They enjoy wide popularity in modern life; almost every American home and library owns at least one field guide, and the same is also true for other areas of the world.

At this time, companies, non-profits, and universities are developing computertechnologies to replace printed field guides for identifying plants. This thesisexamines the state of the art in field guides for plants. First, a framework isestablished for evaluating both printed and digital field guides. Second, fourprint and three digital field guides are evaluated against the criteria. Third, anovel digital field guide is presented and evaluated.